deep within snow
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [oneshot collection] Small moments like these can melt into the snow of the past, or drift away with the winds of the future. Yet, for even a moment, they're worth looking toward. / 1. Byakuya can't forget the sadness on Hisana's face when they first meet.


**A/N:** A collection of oneshots for the Bleach: Shuugi Chousenjou challenge on the Challenge Paradise: Bleach forum, hosted by Yemi Hikari. All oneshots will be in canon (either anime or manga or both) unless otherwise stated.

Disclaimer (for whole collection): Characters, places and canon. Information are all the property of the creators of Bleach. I'm just another fanfic author writing little head-canonish scenes from them. :D

**Week 1.1** – Prompt: _Monday's child is fair of face  
_**Characters**: Hisana K, Byakuya K

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**deep within snow  
1. when they first met**

**.**

Byakuya first saw that sad regret on her face when they'd met, her weaving with her delicate fingers and he searching for a Shinigami that had escaped from Seireitei. He was only a seated officer then; it would be another ten years before he achieves his Bankai and Captain's rank. The staple of his noble house still clung to him though; the aristocracy that stood him above ordinary Commoners like the inhabitants of Inuzuri.

He'd only seen her in passing and quickly forgot – until the next time their paths met.

He was on another mission: this time a more typical one that was below his blood but bereft of his station. His parents had displayed their displeasure at the order, however it was absolute and he had no choice but to complete it. Duty came first after all, and the family knew that there were sometimes sacrifices to be made when serving Soul Society: sacrifices where the pride of blood meant a little less than the duty to one's world. And the mission involved him talking to at least one of Inuzuri's inhabitants – and he saw her weaving under the Sakura blossoms while in search.

She looked up at his shadow and gave him a tender smile. He nodded and accepted the unspoken invitation, taking a seat beside her. 'What brings a noble Shinigami this way?' she asked finally, when Byakuya made no move to engage her.

'Civil unrest,' was the short, but not impolite reply.

'I see,' she said, and lay the cloth she wove on her lap. It was a white scarf, he noted: simple in its design but made to last. The things that Commoners valued, but nobles thought little of. 'There has been a lot of that lately. Civil unrest. Little things that look like they'll become a war'

'Hmm…' Byakuya lifted his eyes from her scarf to her face, seeing the sad regret that hid behind smooth lines and gentle smiles: the sort of thing that sometimes lurked between the powdered mask of a noble woman. 'I was set here to stop it.'

She smiled sadly at him. 'No-one can stop unrest. They can maybe stop a war, but not unrest.'

He frowned a little at that, but he'd grown past the youthful and less refined days where he'd yell at someone who didn't agree with himself. She seemed to notice his feelings anyhow, despite the mask, before she giggled and continued with her simple weaving pattern. The sadness in her gaze did not disappear, however.

**.**

They met more times after that. At first, Byakuya hadn't planned on making an acquaintance out of her, but she was easy to access: under the Sakura blossoms with her weaving, or wandering in the deserted parts of town, searching for something. He didn't ask what, nor did she volunteer that information, but her wandering lend her ears in other places and, once he'd managed to ask her for the help he'd come to find, she was more than willing to share the information.

'I know it can't be helped,' she sighed, sitting gently on a rickety fence. Byakuya stood uncomfortably nearby; despite being surrounded by Commoner society so often in the past few days, the regality of his noble upbringing still clung to him. That meant his sleep was riddled with discomfort, because Inuzuri was far from the best of Rukongai, and even the first District could not match the luxuries of Seiteiri Proper, let along the noble manors. 'I know people can't help but be dissatisfied with what they have, especially when there are other places where there is more. But then I wonder, what about the people who are so high up, they can't look any higher? What do they feel?

'Pride,' Byakuya replied.

'And?' She looked expectantly at him. Byakuya wondered if, to her, a simple Commoner, he did look like that man at the top of the world. And he was close; he was the heir of the Kuchiki clan, and once he mastered his Bankai, a seat as a Captain of the Gotei 13 was almost assured. The only person higher, then, would be the Commander General himself. But that was a good few years away: his Bankai was within his grasp, but currently too wilful and proud.

'And aspirations,' he continued, turning towards the hazy sun that peaked from Seiteiri's high gate. 'For a Shinigami, those aspirations will continue until we surpass the Commander General.'

'And then what?' she wondered out loud. 'I wonder if he feels bored, or sad, that there is no-one right now to match him and drive him on.' She laughed a little, shaking her head. 'Listen to me; all I wanted was to be able to survive and I sacrificed the most important thing in the world for it. And now I'm searching uselessly to find it, and get it back.'

Byakuya saw the raw pain in her expression, the softness replaced with bitter regret and the hardness that existed in the face of all Commoners. But then it was gone, replaced with that soft smile and gentle expression, the eyes being the only thing that clung to the sadness and regret she felt. The sort of expression that looked as though it could easily break, and yet no doubt held hidden strength beneath.

He shook his head slowly; he didn't understand why her expression was so captivating to him. 'What is your name?' he asked her, something he'd refrained from asking before in a – perhaps arrogant, perhaps futile – attempt to maintain distance between the pair of them.

'Hisana,' the woman replied, looking at Byakuya directly.

**.**

Perhaps Byakuya had dawdled in his set task, or perhaps civil unrest was a delicate matter the likes of which he'd never dealt with before, but he wound up spending a few months in Inuzuri before the Gotei 13 was satisfied with the state of affairs there. And, when he was finally recalled to Seiteiri and assigned his next mission, he thought that chapter of his life, his time in Inuzuri, was over. He would forget the unnecessary details; only the things that would make him stronger, contribute to his eternal path of training, would remain. But Hisana's face did not fade from his mind. It stayed, burning stronger and brighter until he chased after it, taking time off his Shinigami duties and as head of the Clan to find her.

When he does, she is still searching for that something whose loss had saddened her so greatly, but she remembers him, mouths the name he had only told her once and she'd never repeated back to him, and he says her name as well, a name he'd refrained from saying because it was a Commoner's name – but she was too much a Noble woman, in his heart, to be another Commoner. Or maybe that is just his way of rationalising irrationality.

His family is dissatisfied when he, in a year or so, marries her and brings her home. And Byakuya is dissatisfied as well, because while the soft snow face looks happier now, with him, it is still hiding sadness and regret behind it.


End file.
